Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1887-08-25

Z sdNdESS rs uttucQ EtNlelOu ana amend
ment. Many meal l have enjoved in
| the neat little dining room, and many a
night have sat around the big fire in the
kitchen, that is, as far around as / could
get, listening to the fearful narrative of
Long Dog or to the prairie news that the
| Broad Necklace brought in. There was
no presage of danger tnen, nothing
prophetic of the via fearful night that
was rolling round the earth for the happy
trader and his pretty wife.
Want of food was the origin of the
! trouble. That may seem strange state
ment, whsn compared with the descrip-
| ton of the Indians successes, but a day
came when the buffalo started south and
crossed the Missouri river, where the
Sioux dared not follow. Even the ante.
| lope wandered away, and the prairies were
left barren of game. As a matter of
course there was nothing on hand. Your
Indian is not thrifty person. Give
quantity of food to a savage and there is
no work done until the latter has absorb
ed the former. The idea of depositing
grub in the bank has never found much
favor on the plains. and when one year
the fall frosts came, bringing with them
the promise of winter, and the last hoof
disappeared, the detected Sioux looked at
each Others stomachs and wondered how
! long they would stand out full and round
without artificial encouraR ement. There
were fish in abundance, a few jack rab
bits and whole colonies of gophers; but
! your Indian is sensitive party, and will
hunt nothing that he can't hunt on a
horse. He can fast indefinitely, but his
spirit is above small game, So our
friends, the hostiles, settled down TO a
comfortable family starve. And it was
right there that Mr.. Edward Allen made
bit of a mistake. Had he closed his
store, as the civilized merchant does
when famine sets in, he had kept himself
out of difficulty, but he didn't Touched
with an unnecessary sentiment of pity
he began to give away quantities of food,
and, naturally, he came to grief. Unfor-
tunately for Mr.. Allen he was a practical
man. Had he understood that philan-
throphy Is purely speculative science,
he had Jared much better. But he went
about philanthropy as he went about his
business, and, consequently, he dropped
1 into trouble, The more he gave, the
more importunate became his benetici-
aries.
They asked, they begged, and then de-
manded more. Thereupon Mr.. Allen did
what he should have done in the first
! place ~ shut up his shop and went home
to his wife who had a few months prev
/ iously presented him with a baby. This
exas perated his customers, and the dance
opened. Mind you he had six men in his
employ. There we're fifteen at the fort
under Walsh. The Sioux numbered 5000,
and the nearest help was 2l0 miles to the
northwest
The sacking of the store was horrible
sight, especially for Allen, Hundreds of
savages, crazed with hunger, tore log
from log and seized upon everything
edible. They fought like snakes with
each other for morsel, and in the morn
ing the cold winter sun threw frozen
beams upon the men who had been killed
for food. Did they want it for themselves!
| Not one of them. Down the side of that
ragged, clearless mountains were babies,
red as prairie fires, but human and hun
CRY. Up from the lodges came wailings
and Iamentation, answered back from the
mountain-top with shrieks of rage and
pain, as mighty warriors strove with each
other for the broken food that would stop
an infants suffering. 1t was for the
brats that they broke Mr.. Allen up in
business not for themselves, and when
they Quilted his store, they turned 10 his
house for more Refused they concoct-
ed deyilish scheme of vengeance, and
what is very much more to the point,
they carried il out.
If there is dearer thing to an Indian
than his God, it is his child. Some pious
people may not understand the possibili-
ty of such preference, but they should
remember that they are civilized, and
that in civilization lots of things rank the
babies. The Indian doesn't look at it so.
First in his mind comes the child and
that child he will feed at the expense OF
his life. He doesn't reconcile himself
to the idea that starving young one is
but bud opening into the.perfect flower
He finds no resignation in romantic
deception of the inevitable. When his
papoose is hungry he is going to skirmish
Tor fodder, and if he gets licked he takes
it quietly, so quietly that he never moves
around much afterward. Understanding
his own feelings, he asoribes the same &c
others, and the Wood mountain end OF
the schedule, conjecturing that if they
secured Aliens baby he would put NJ any
amount of nourishment az q ransom
broke into the house and yanked thC
youngster from its mothers arms. OF
course that made trouble. The mother
couldn't stand it, and the row com
menced.
Up through coulees a shrek of mourn
ing rent the air and drifted away to fine
its echoes in the mountains. Red womeI
moaned with des pair over the dead bodies
of husbands and sons. 4. Dusky faces wer'
pressed upon the snow that melted unde
hot tears of grief for husbands ant
brothers slain in the grapple for grub
for after all, grief is colorless, and at
tacks, irrespective of hue. The copper
, skinned savage has cardiac eDtrail a
susceptible TO love as-well, as the aver
/. age city woman-and she misses he
loves and mUurns them a. bitterly
Through the camp that stood like grea
, ghosts in the pickering of the fires, mel
still fought and wrestled, and at the up
per end of the village a great Grove
gathered around the white baby. Their
was no disposition to hurt 1t. To 1t
captors it was circulating medium rep
II